Northwestern Mutual Announces Major Cuts

Northwestern Mutual announced major job cuts Friday morning. This announcement comes as a brand new multi-million dollar headquarter is under construction in downtown Milwaukee.

A local non-profit looked at the numbers and says these layoffs should be a learning experience for us all.

Citizens Action of Wisconsin looked back at the records and found that the city of Milwaukee gave the corporation $54 million in incentives to construct their new building, that’s not including the $18 million the company received to move some of their offices to Oak Creek.

The non-profit says corporations who receive tax payer money, like in this case, should be held accountable to pay the money back or show proof of those good paying jobs being created.

“Without these standards we're not really sure, as a public focus group, how a company of this size really lay off a large number of its staff and then still receive the same amount of tax break.” Says the organizing director of Citizens Acton of Wisconsin, Kevin Kane. “And if that's the case, why should we be allowing companies, that are receiving public dollars, to shed staff but keep the money?”

CBS 58 reached out to Northwest Mutual for comment and they sent us this statement:

“One of the key reasons Northwestern Mutual has thrived for nearly 160 years is that we continuously evaluate our business to ensure we remain competitive and do what is best for our clients. As we continue to make strategic investments to meet the future needs of our clients, we also have a responsibility to manage our business as efficiently as possible. This is especially important as unprecedented low interest rates are putting pressure on companies across our industry. To maintain our strong financial position and serve our clients’ needs, we are evaluating our operations to ensure we have the skills and digital capabilities we need to take us into the future. We’re streamlining processes and identifying new ways to work efficiently. While we will continue to grow our business and hire accordingly, there will be impact to some positions over time.”